


A Brief History of Donna and Her Family

by thecolourclear (afinch)



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Family, Gen, Immigrant Stories, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-09
Updated: 2006-08-09
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/thecolourclear
Summary: When she calls Mrs. Morello from the Oval Office, she considers picking up the phone to tell her parents, but decides against it. When she called them from the Oval Office three years ago, they didn't seem too impressed, asking her when she was going to graduate college and start acting like her brother.





	A Brief History of Donna and Her Family

**Author's Note:**

> Written after reading cantbesilent's post on LJ about [bad fanfic](http://cantbesilent.livejournal.com/43818.html) and cheering section number five.

Fiammetta doesn't remember anything of her homeland. She knows the stories of getting visas from an uncle and coming to America in October of 1939 on a ship, but only two years old at the time, she remembers nothing. 

She told everyone, her mother included, to call her Fia. Everyone but her mother listened. She grew up in a place called the Twin Cities – living in the St. Paul half. When she is eight – at the end of the war that forced her parents from home – she realises she can speak English better than her parents and asks not to go back to Italy. Her mother acquiesces and leaves her with her tall, bearded, very American uncle.

She never sets foot in Italy again.

*

Eamon doesn't remember much of the war, as it didn't touch the family farm in Northern Minnesota. So far north, in fact, it's impossible to tell where America ends and Canada begins. He was eleven when it ended, and 19 when he left the small farm to go to college – in a big town called St. Paul.

The city scares him half to death and he constantly yearns for the comfort of his sleepy home. He writes his father and asks to move back home. His father does not acquiesce and tells his son to get an education. It is 1953 and Eamon is fascinated by the countries obsession with communism. In 1955 his younger brother writes him to say their parents have died. 

He never finishes his education.

*

When Gregorio is born early into 1956, Eamon and his new wife, Fia are living just outside of Warroad, Minnesota, on the family farm. Fia misses the big city. Eamon does not. 

As Greg rises to the top of his class, Fia decides her parents ought to know. She writes them a letter. They never write back. Greg never asks about his grandparents. Fia and Eamon never volunteer information. 

Greg's Valedictory address is marred by Fia's water breaking.

*

They name the baby Donnatella Grace. Fia considers her the best gift from God that ever could happen. This time her parents write back, demanding pictures of the little girl. Donna refuses to have her hair curled.

When she gets her first C in high school, she does not go home that day, or the next. She is grounded for three weeks. When the second C comes, she forges her parent's signature on the form. She grounds herself for three weeks.

Greg doesn't show up for the graduation.

*

When she calls Mrs. Morello from the Oval Office, she considers picking up the phone to tell her parents, but decides against it. When she called them from the Oval Office three years ago, they didn't seem too impressed, asking her when she was going to graduate college and start acting like her brother. 

Greg agrees, asking her how much money she's making and launches into a long ramble about his company and being CEO and being in charge of his minions. She wants to know why it matters and tells him she likes the behind the scenes work of the White House. He says politics is dumb and stopping for a beer isn't the world's biggest crime. 

She hangs up the phone. 

*

In second grade, her teacher, Miss Collins, asks her why her penmanship is not as pretty as her brother's was. She sticks her tongue out at Miss Collins. She doesn't go to recess for the rest of the month. After that, she decides Greg is the source of all evil and she must beat him at his own game. 

All her teachers like Greg better. She comes to like the new ones the best, where she does not have a shadow. Her sixth grade teacher tells her she has the potential to do anything she wants. When she mentions she wants to be more successful than her brother, her teacher asks her to make a list of all the things she can already do better than Greg.

She hands in a blank piece of paper.

*

She doesn't know what to major in at the (at the time) biggest party school in the country. Greg did something with economics and makes more money than God every year. He gives one quarter of it to Eamon and Fia. They want to know why Donna only sends a card that year. 

Her boyfriend lets her borrow some money for them. Six months later he asks her to get a job so he can go to medical school. She acquiesces. When he breaks up with her, she decides to follow the advice of Mrs. Morrello and chase her own dreams. 

Two weeks later she meets Joshua Lyman.


End file.
